


too much candy gonna rot your soul

by infiniteandsmall



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Food, M/M, Trickster Mode, Underage Drinking, drug references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 04:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infiniteandsmall/pseuds/infiniteandsmall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For once, it wasn’t Roxy’s suggestion.</p><p>Jane slips him a cupcake and a grin as she passes him in the hall. In the middle of the cupcake is a note reading in her loopy cursive, “If you’re not at my house by eight this Thursday I’m calling the coppers! Love, Jane”</p><p>How is he supposed to say no?</p><p>*</p><p>Dirk attends Jane's Halloween party, where there is copious amounts of alcohol and copious amounts of cake. A take on human!Tricksters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	too much candy gonna rot your soul

**Author's Note:**

> A weird little Halloween thing that I forgot to post on Halloween.  
> Oh well.

For once, it wasn’t Roxy’s suggestion.

Jane slips him a cupcake and a grin as she passes him in the hall. In the middle of the cupcake is a note reading in her loopy cursive, “If you’re not at my house by eight this Thursday I’m calling the coppers! Love, Jane”

How is he supposed to say no?

(Jake’s note was apparently underneath the frosting, since Jane knew he licked off the frosting before he ate the cupcake. Roxy’s was not hidden at all but merely stuck on top, which Dirk thought was an excellent decision on Jane’s part since Roxy had already taken a bite out of her Fritos bag in her typical Monday-morning-hangover-haze).

“It’s just going to be the four of us,” Jane assures him. “I just thought, c’mon, it’s Halloween, it would be fun to dress up in costumes and eat some candy. Maybe watch some spooky movies,” she says, grabbing Roxy’s arm and cackling for effect.

“Oh my sweet migrane-affected Lord, Ja-Cro,” Roxy groans. “Could you keep it down to a dull roar?”

“Sorry, Rox,” Jane says, petting Roxy’s hair as penance.

“I’ll be there,” Dirk says.

“Of course you will!” Jake says, throwing an arm around Dirk’s neck. “We’re certainly not going to turn up our noses for a chance at one of your delicious concoctions, Janey, are we, bud!” Jake nudges his nose into Dirk’s hair, and Dirk is acutely aware of how the knob of his spine at the nape of his neck must be digging into Jake’s triceps, of how the press of Jake’s skin feels warm on his.

“I’ll be making some concoctions as well,” Roxy says, accompanied by an attempt at a wink that looks more painful that flirtatious.

“I think I have just the thing to wear!” Jake announces, giving Dirk’s shoulder a small squeeze before sliding his arm off of Dirk and leaning his weight away. Dirk is relieved, and at the same time wants to grab Jake’s arm and put it back. But that would be clingy and strange and needy and Dirk does not do that, and—

*

Jake’s outfit consists of golden booty shorts.

Of fucking course.

Gold booty shorts dumb little thigh holster with dumber fake pistols tucked in it, and no shirt at all.

The bass vibrates through the concrete under the soles of Dirk’s converse as he stands on the front porch, trying to figure out how to subtle scooch past a mostly-naked Jake draped across the doorway without touching anything.

“Would you come in?” Jake says after a few awkward seconds, offering his hand. “It really is awful cold out there, no matter how warm it is in here.”

“Oh—um, yeah. That shit’s the worst. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Jake says, reaching forward to take Dirk’s hand.

“Yeah, I forgot—with the hand, and, you know. Yeah.” Real life is hard. Peoples’ faces move and that means shit and hands and body language and it’s all so shitty and overwhelming, but Dirk is standing there flapping his hands around gesturing aimlessly from himself to Jake while Jake stood there with a hand out, and Strider.

Go take that boy’s hand do it RIGHT NOW. Pull yourself together.

 Jake slipped his fingers in between Dirk’s, head cocked to one side, considering something.

“What are you doing?” Dirk says.

“I’m trying to guess your costume, doofus!” Jake says. He steps back, steps closer, squints, unsquints, like he’s Sherlock fucking Holmes. Dirk just knows he is imagining that he has a magnificent porkchop mustache to stroke right now.

“You’re that guy from that one anime-thing!” Jake says, bouncing on the tips of his toes. “Kanina, right?”

“Kamina,” Dirk says, and he can feel the corner of his mouth quirking up in smile in spite of himself. He is wearing a pair of jeans and a hoodie and his shades aren’t even red, but he smiles.  

Jane’s house isn’t large, a boxy suburban affair with all the walls painted white.

“Di-i-i-rk!” Roxy thrills as soon as he sets foot in the kitchen, a bottle in each hand.

One is orange juice, but the other is definitely vodka.

“Dad Crocker’s not home, eh?” Dirk says.

Jane rolls her eyes and gives whatever she’s mixing a particularly aggressive stir. “Sure, Dirk, we’re having a vodka party while my dad sits in the den and watches the news. No, he’s not home, silly.”

“Janey’s is mostly orange juice,” Roxy says, holding a cup up to Jane’s lips. “Mine’s not.”

“Of course not,” Dirk says. Jake’s let go of his hand, he’s sitting on the counter stealing out of Jane’s bowl, sucking batter off his finger, head tipped back and thighs dark against the white countertop. Roxy’s writing their names on two plastic cups, dotting the “i” in Dirk’s name with a heart, putting a smiley fake inside the “a” of Jake’s. Smeared messy hearts, smeared messy smiley faces with Roxy’s wobbly drunk fingers.

“Later, Roxy,” Dirk says, but Jake takes a swig of his and sputters, ridiculous, at the burn.

“Come sit with me, Dirk,” Jake says, patting the counter next to him, and stealing a banana out of the wire basket tucked beside the toaster.

“It’s Halloween and you’re eating bananas?” Jane says. “Boy, that’s what you are.”

“I see what you did there,” Roxy giggles, pulling out bottles of fruity soda from the dollar store, red and magenta and orange and green and pale pink and blue-raspberry. Jane’s got the oven timer running for another batch of cookies and she’s frosting a cake with pink sugar roses and white buttercream. A pile of gold and silver and colored-foil-wrappings shining like dragon treasure, candy bars and candy bars and strawberry Twizzlers.

But he and Jake start the night with bananas and apples and pears, hands sticky and Dirk’s jeans scratching against Jake’s skin. Jake rips pear skin off with his teeth and the juice runs down his wrists and he takes Roxy’s shots and giggles into Dirk’s neck and Dirk is helpless, helpless and hopeless and head-over-heels.

*

The soda is so sweet it makes Dirk’s tongue hurt, the fizz burning down his throat. Roxy mixes pineapple and raspberry and vodka, green apple and pomegranate and gin, passes them around, drinks from this cup, drinks from that.

Jane’s started on a batch of brownies, and when her back is turned Roxy carries the cake to the kitchen table and starts to cut it. Dirk’s not sure if he trusts her with the knife but he’s not going to be the one who takes it from her.

She gives Dirk a piece with two frosting roses and kisses his cheek, sticky lips. The touch makes him feel guilty, because Jake’s slid so he’s laying flat across the counter, knees tucked up underneath the corner cabinet, feet crushing bags of bread or potato chips. His head is Dirk’s lap and he can’t concentrate to steel himself for Roxy’s touch because his whole body is on fire with weight and another person’s unpredictable bones.

But she’s already moved on, draped over Jane and dipping her fingers into the chocolaty brownie batter.

Jake is taking Dirk’s hand, tracing the tendon and veins, turning it around and poking at the palm. It’s like he’s never seen another person’s hand before, with a different set of heart lines.

“Hey, dude, you do know that my wrist doesn’t turn that way,” Dirk says, trying to sound dry and half-disinterested, and Jake drops Dirk’s hand and grins aimlessly up at him.

“Someone’s ringing the doorbell,” Dirk mutters, and hops of the counter. He’s not going to let any of his teen-house-party-cliches of friends answer the door for a bunch of little princesses and Supermans, that’s for fucking sure.

There’s a bowl of candy sitting by the front door.

Dirk greets the crowd of ten-year-old boys on the porch with a “sup” and starts dropping candy bars into countless upheld pillowcases.

“I like your glasses,” the last kid said. “They’re kind of lame, but whatever.”

“Thanks,” Dirk says and shuts the door in the kid’s face.

“I saved you a piece of cake,” Jake says, holding out a paper plate with a fork teetering precariously off the side.

“Thanks,” Dirk says and takes the cake.

It’s delicious, the cake part airy. It melts in his mouth in a puff of bittersweet cocoa, and then the frosting like a nuclear bomb of sugar and butter blowing up his tastebuds.

“Gadzooks,” Jake moans around a bite, dark crumbs on his chin. “Jane is a kitchen goddess.”

“Pretty much,” Dirk says, forking the bite with both roses and shoving it into his mouth. “There’s candy in a bowl up front, too, if you want some later.”

“Sounds great, ole chap,” Jake says, clapping him on the back. “But I think Jane’s brownies are ready right now.”

Jane’s cutting them and warning Roxy to stay away, the pan’s hot. Haphazard squares that Jane carefully places on a paper plate, dabbing frosting on top and her quick dabs form a perfect flower, even drunk as fuck.

Dirk takes one of the larger ones. Like the cake, it’s bittersweet with cocoa, but unlike the cake this doesn’t melt away, sitting heavy and fudgy and heavenly in Dirk’s mouth. There’s a small spike of sugar like an electric shock to the tongue from the frosting dabs, and his whole mouth tastes like chocolate even after he swallows. Jake’s mouth must taste like chocolate right now, would leave dark chocolate smudges on Dirk’s neck.

“C’mon, Dirk, don’t be a party pooper,” Roxy says, shoving another plastic cup filled with some kind of ungodly combination of booze and soda at him. Jake’s sprawled out on the kitchen floor, gripping Dirk’s ankles and fingers scrabbling higher up Dirk’s leg.

“I’m not pooping your party. Note how you are drunk as fuck despite the fact that I am standing here like the most sober kumbucha drinking hipster to ever exist. Therefore, our conclusion is that my hypothesis is correct. I’m not pooping your goddamn party in the slightest.”

“Dirk! You are pooping on my party, because you’re not having any fun. You’re all tense, Dirk, all tense as shit, you need to drink some and be all—“ Roxy hiccups, then waves her arms around like a life-sized Gumby in a tornado “—noodly. You need to be noodly, Dirk!”

“I don’t want to be noodly. I am perfectly fine not waving my arms around like a moron.”

“But you do-o-o want to be noodly,” Roxy trills. “I know you want to be noodly. Because when you’re noodly, you’re so, so, so happy. It feel like you’re flying with little bluebirds, Dirk, it’s _great_ —“ and oh god, is she getting weepy?

“Jane,” Roxy whimpers. “Jane, where did you go?”

“Hmm? Roxy I’m right behind you.” Jane says, wrapping her arms around Jane’s waist.

“Oh, yeah,” and thank smuppet jesus, she perks up. “See, Dirk, Jane feels so sort and warm when you’re noodly. She feels like magic when you’re noodly.”

“I don’t—“

“Feel her! She’s like a kitten after it just had a bath, like when Mutie runs in the mud and so I have to give her a bath because if I don’t she walks on my bedspread and it feels like soup—no, it feels more like soap—“

“I’ll feel her,” Dirk says, and awkwardly pets Jane’s shoulder in an attempt to appease Roxy. “Um, yeah. She feels like. Like a goddamn trunkful of kittens. It feels super great.”

“No! You gotta feel her more! Like thi-i-is.” Roxy says, and nuzzles Jane’s neck.

“Oh my god, that tickles,” Jane says, stumbling a little, and the drink sways precariously in Roxy’s hand. Jake’s hand grips his knee.

“Fine. I’ll take it,” Dirk says.

“See! I knew it.” Roxy says, smiling like she’s the Virgin Mary sending miracles down from Heaven and not a teenager at a dumb Halloween party of four people passing out drinks that could probably make a small dog need to go on dialysis.

Dirk accepts the cup and takes a swig. The burn overpowers the sweetness, and he tries not to grimace. Orange and raspberry and bourbon do not go well together at all.

“See, now you’re getting into the spirit, Dirk!” Jake says, shakily standing up. “I’ve been in the spirit for like a whole _hour_ now just cakewalking along with the spirit and I must say that my cakewalk is rather fine—“

“Yeah,” Dirk says, and who’s the one who makes longwinded metaphors now? “This metaphor is totally coherent and also pretty great, but it’s time to shut it the fuck down, bro.”

Jane and Roxy are falling against the cabinets giggling at Jake’s comment and Dirk doesn’t even getting it. He doesn’t even really get it after downing half his glass. He doesn’t even really find it funny.

It’s terrible, but sometimes he envies Roxy when she’s drunk, how easily she touches and laughs and makes goofy jokes. It’s not like he’s dying to go out and fuck up his liver beyond belief, but he hates his constant unabilty to act like a goddamned actually fucking human being around other people.

Jane and Roxy are getting kind of uncomfortably close, and since Roxy’s normal definition of “close” involves the sort of PDA that makes people on school buses feel fiery burning hatred, “uncomfortably close” basically means that her face is buried in Jane’s boobs.

He should not feel awkward, he should feel—he should feel like Jane, like roxy, like Jake. But his hands feel too big and too small and too useless, and his head feels too heavy.

“Let’s go get candy,” Jake says. “I must say I’ve got a hankering for some, and I think Roxy and Jane want some time unchaperoned, eh?”

“Sure,” Dirk says. “But it’s not like we were their chaperones, they’re not Victorian ladies.”

“Of course not. I’ve seen their ankles many a time!” Jake says, dragging Dirk by the elbow into the front hallway. “They’re lovely ankles. I hope we’re all always together. I hope we have kids all at the same time and then we can have babies together and all that jolly stuff.”

“I don’t think that means what you think—“ Dirk starts, but Jake shoves a still-wrapped Reese’s into his mouth, which effectively shuts him up.

“Reese’s are my favorite. I thought they’d be yours, too! They’re like your eyes. They’re like—“ Jake looked down at his Reese’s as his wrapper fell to the floor, struggling to find the right words. “They’re chocolate.”

Dirk is busy picking pieces of plastic out of his mouth. It’s not like he could think of an answer to that, anyways.

Reese’s are pretty much like heaven, though. Processed chocolate processed peanut butter, but the way that the chocolate and the peanut butter crumbles into his mouth is pretty goddamned delicious. Sugar on his teeth, chocolate around the edge of Jake’s mouth. It’s not as delicious as he’d thought it would be, but he reaches for another one anyways.

He’s looking down at the piece of chocolate he’s about to eat when Jake grabs the front of his hoodie and pins him to the front door.

“You’re too drunk to wrestle,” Dirk says, but his heart’s beating fast.

“I know,” Jake says, smashing his lips into Dirk’s so fast that Dirk’s head slams into the door.

He tastes like Reese’s and fruity soda and brownie and buttercream and vodkaginbourbon but it’s delicious, lips warm legs hot even through Dirk’s jeans. He’s going to have a lump on his head tomorrow but for now he can feel the throb of his rapidly-ticking heartbeat in the pain and it feels good, the press of his hoodie against the back of his neck and _JakeJakeJakeJake_.

He grabs Jake’s arms and tries to arch against him, floor unsubstantial underneath his feet. Jake pulls back, eyes so large and green and sharp, all the candy off his lips, breathing hard, and Dirk wishes he was drunk, because fear is riding in him that Jake will be angry (why?) that Jake will walk away (dude can barely stand) that Jake is only doing it because he’s drunk (yes) that Jake will think it was stupid in the morning (of course) that he’s been waiting and waiting for this and this was a stupid time (who knew where it had gone) and he’s overthinking again but he can’t stop, he wishes he was drunk he wishes he was drunk.

“Stairs,” Jake gasps and pitches Dirk against them, the stairs that go up to Jane’s bedroom, and Dirk puts up a cursory struggle, muscles burning against Jake’s, and he’s beat him before but today he thinks of the weight of Jake’s body pressing against his and the points of the stairs digging into his back like they’ll cut out his vertebrae and decides that today he’ll lose.

Jake’s legs wrap around Dirk and Dirk grips them like they’re his lifeline as Jake slides his tongue into Dirk’s mouth and presses curiously against the roof of his mouth. Jake’s thighs are warm so warm and strong, Dirk and can feel the muscles tense and relax as Jake shifts his weight to bite where Dirk’s shoulder meets his neck. In the light from the porch shining through the windows Dirk can see where his nails dug, rows of four dark crescent-shaped marks.

“Oh,” Dirk gasps, because he was not expecting that to be so hot, to see where he’s marked Jake _hishishishis_ , and Jake flicks his tongue where Dirk has some marks of his own.

Dirk thinks of outside, of the blue lawns stretching to the street. He wonders if there is any bakery in the world that could sell the taste of Jake’s mouth, wonders if anyone could taste Dirk in Jake’s mouth the way Dirk can taste Jane’s cake and Roxy’s cocktails. Would he taste like acidic metal heartburn, or would he taste like Reese’s?

*

Jane and Roxy break up their sloppy drunken makeouts in time to take another batch of brownies out of the oven when the timer goes off.

The kitchen seems harshly bright after the relative dimness of the front hall, and Dirk and Jake blink into the light as Jane cuts this batch and gives them their slightly slooppier frosting flowers.

Dirk goes to grab the first one, but Jane slaps his hand away. “If you’re not drinking you don’t want one of these,” she says.

“But I am drinking—are these—oh my god.” Dirk sputters, and he shouldn’t be mad because they’re too drunk right now to know better but they should know better, because what if Dirk had been drinking, and he’s pretty sure nothing too bad happens from mixing marijuana and alcohol, but still. “Jesus fucking goddamn christ, Jane,” he snaps. “Do you even know what the fuck you’re doing?”

“We made brownies, Dirk. I don’t get why you’re pissed!” Jane says.

“You made weed brownies.”

“So?”

“So? I’m pretty sure bad shit happens when you mix drugs and alcohol.”

“It’ll be fine, Dirk! C’mon, I thought you were supposed to be noodly.” Roxy says.

“Well, I’m not,” Dirk says flatly. “And thank fucking god.”

“It wouldn’t be that bad,” Jane says. “You can use weed like medicine and stuff, it’s great!”

“Not when you’re drunk!”

“How do you know?”

“Because everyone knows that you don’t do drugs and alcohol. It’s just gonna give you a shitty trip. Save ‘em for when you’re like a hundred goddamn percent less pickled in alcohol.”

“Whatevs,” Roxy says. “If you’re gonna get your big boy panties in a twist about it, I’ll save them.”

“Just don’t come into school high, too.”

“Be polite, Dirk Strider, or you can go upstairs and sleep it off until you’re less of an asshole,” Jane says.

“I’d offer to let you take some home but I bet you couldn’t even get high,” Roxy says.

“Roxy, don’t bait him,” Jane says sharply. “Now all of you, pack up this alcohol and get it out of here. Roxy, you can take the brownies home. I feel sick and I’m never drinking again and won’t somebody turn off the stereo, it’s giving me a headache.”

She promptly pukes into the sink, but she’s still managed to pretty much neutralize them. Dirk and Roxy park Jane and an equally sick Jake on the couch and let Jake pick a movie and, out of guilt, they not only pack up all of Roxy’s bottles in her duffel bag and dump it back into her car but also wash the dishes and put the extra cookies into the actual cookie jar Jane has sitting on the counter.

Jane’s dad won’t be back until tomorrow, so they camp out in the living room, watching movies until everyone’s stomachs settle at three in the morning.

Laying with his head on Jake’s stomach, Dirk feels like he’s hovering over them all and watching from someplace higher up, like some kind of wacked-out depressive ceiling cat. He and Jake and Roxy and Jane all curled together, surrounded by pillows and blankets. His stomach is settled but his heart is not.

Here is one thing that he knows is not his. Here is one thing he knows he can’t hold together.

But here is one thing he knows will not fall apart.

Heart racing but head quiet, he falls asleep with sugar on his tongue.


End file.
